Labels and allowing yourself to become an illness.

     Is it really useful to have a label to apply to yourself, especially in the context with a disorder or illness?  While many people who have a mental health diagnosis eventually move past this label, it can be hard for some to accept that they are more than their diagnosis.  I know one individual that relates every experience they have to their diagnosis.  They have self-imposed this sort of rigid set of definitions upon themselves such that everything that occurs does so because of their illness.  Partly, in their case, it is done because that is all they have known.  However, many people who have lived a “normal” life before being forced to live with a diagnosis adhere to this same behavior.

     Though I have spoken on the issue of being more than just a list of symptoms, it needs repeating that when professionals reduce us to a series of symptoms and responses; we begin to adhere to this view.  I agree it is nice to be able to identify what is wrong and be able to give it a name, but there is a subtle difference between the sayings “I am bipolar” and “I have bipolar.”  Replace any other health condition with bipolar and see how the statements stand up.  “I am a cold.”  “I have a cold.”  “I am diabetes.”  “I have diabetes.”

     Why is it that so many people are taught to think the former?  They begin to see everything they do as a symptom.  I have often seen people who think they should have no affect.  If they begin to get agitated they immediately say that they need a medication adjustment.  I, personally, am on the opposite end of this spectrum and have refused to see that my medication did need to be changed.  Often medications are given that can reduce a person to next to no discernible personality.  I was on a particular medication for over a year.  This medication sedated me, robbed me of my ability to speak clearly, and made me a different person.  I was on this medication since before my psychiatrist, therapist, or psychosocial rehabilitation facilitators knew me and therefore assumed that this was the way I was supposed to be.

     Sure my symptoms were gone, and I thought that was all that mattered, so I put up with the side effects.  I assumed that putting up with not having a personality was my curse for having a mental illness.  As such I boxed myself into a checklist of symptoms and noticed I had none of them and assumed I was doing well.  To my psychiatrist my symptoms were gone, and that was good enough.  If I was feeling sedated, I should split my dose.  If I was feeling lethargic, it was due to a lack of exercise, not the medication.  The medication was working.  I became my illness such that all I could think of was reducing my symptoms through medication.

     Medication is a very important aspect of mental health recovery.  Ever since switching my medication I have become a “new” person.  That is, I became the person I was before being diagnosed.  They found the right medications for me, and did so fairly quickly.  For some people, this process takes years.  I got lucky.  However, medications are not the be-all end-all.  To medicate your symptoms away and not allow yourself the freedom to experience life is allowing your diagnosis to rule your life.  Realize that there is a lot of work and “personal medicine” to be used in conjunction with psychiatric medication.

     Please do not wish away every emotion.  Be anxious, be sad, and be a little excitable from time to time.  However if you truly feel off, perhaps a medication discussion is in order.   It just should not be the first place to jump to.  If a situation makes you anxious, popping a pill to relieve the anxiety will just reinforce the notion that when anxious a pill makes it better.  Sure, for some people this may be the only course of action.  I would fashion that many people can learn to overcome their anxiety much like any other phobia.  

--JJM